Kazakhstan was on the map all along. All Gennady Golovkin did was circle it.

Only eight countries in the world are bigger. It squats in the middle of Central Asia, larger by itself than Western Europe.

It also is the biggest country in the world without a coastline. Since it gained independence only in 1991, it had some ground to make up. Golovkin is the vehicle.

Golovkin is the undefeated middleweight champion and meets Canelo Alvarez on Saturday night in the most attractive summit meeting not involving Floyd Mayweather since Oscar De La Hoya met Felix Trinidad in 1999. That, and others since, was billed as the “Last Great Fight.” The assumption was boxing would dissipate soon afterward.

Instead, Manny Pacquiao came along, from the Phillippines. He was followed by Golovkin, an even more obscure man from an even farther country, armed with nothing but a beguiling smile and previously unseen power.

It has taken a while and he is now 35, but Golovkin has climbed a pile of dazed victims to a possible $10 million payday. He sells out Madison Square Garden. He is anything but the “B” side Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

There was the famous picture of a Kazakhstani Army battalion marching in “GGG” formation. There was the story of a soccer game in Astana, the capital, interrupted for 15 minutes by the furor when Golovkin walked in.

He is the culmination of Kazakhstan’s sporting trend. In Rio de Janeiro last year, Kazakhstani athletes won 22 medals, and they have won golds over the years in eight different sports. They have also won 22 boxing medals, 10th among all nations. Golovkin won silver at the 2004 Games in Athens, beating Andre Dirrell of the U.S. in the semifinals.

Nik Antropov of Kazakhstan played in the National Hockey League. Several years ago, Golovkin was asked if he ever played. “No,” he said, shaking his head and remaining deadpan. “Too much fighting. Like five sparring partners.”

FC Astana, government-run and filthy rich, has twice qualified for the Champions League, and Kazakhstan was a finalist for the 2022 Winter Games that went to Beijing.

Golovkin’s father was a coal miner near his hometown of Karaganda, populated by nearly a half-million. His mother is Korean. Two of his brothers joined the Soviet Army and died in combat. Kazakhstan also was the main site for Soviet nuclear testing, and those health ramifications are still being calculated.

Since it gained independence, Kazakhstan has been on an economic roll. This summer, it sponsored Expo 2017, attracting representatives from 101 governments to explore energy policy. In 2014, its GDP grew by 4.6 percent, a rate the U.S. would envy, and it produces more uranium than anyone else.

It also exported $35 billion worth of oil last year.

Barbara Junisvai is an assistant professor at Pitzer College and has lived in both Astana, a city that was basically invented in 1997, and Almaty, the former capital.

“There’s been a feeling for a long time that they were underdogs,” Junisvai said. “They were always being occupied. Now they’re very proud of what they’re becoming. A hero like Golovkin helps take that message to the world.

“The other ‘stans’ nearby — Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — are more insular and isolated. The thing you notice in Kazakhstan is how much they’re looking outward, how curious they are about the world. There’s a real hunger there.”

Any hunger for true freedom has been snuffed by the nation’s only ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, 77, who won his last election with 98 percent of the vote. His nation is ranked 161st in the world for press freedoms by Reporters Without Borders, and he has met occasional protests with gunfire.

Astana is his monument, a billion-dollar undertaking. Bayterek is a 100-meter tower that distinguishes Astana, and one of its attractions is a handprint of Nazarbayev. In fact, the whole capital is built on architectural largesse, with a 77-meter Palace of Peace and Reconciliation pyramid, and massive streets too big for the traffic on most days, a Rock Ridge effect built to make a statement.

Jonathan Aitken wrote a biography of Nazarbayev. He told CNN that Nazarbayev designed the excesses of Astana and has pushed for prosperity because he’s ambitious for his country, not just for power.

Junisbai said she enjoyed Kazakhstan, especially its people, but offered two caveats: “It’s pretty hard to get to. And it’s very, very cold.”

It will be warm Sunday morning when its hopes and dreams, housed in two businesslike fists of a native son, walk into a Las Vegas ring.

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